Tropic Thunder Blunder

11 August 2008 – Tim Shriver, Chair of the Special Olympics and Washington Post Columnist, devoted today’s commentary to the controversy about Tropic Thunder. If anyone is not already familiar with this controversy see previous icad post of the Arc Press Release for basic information. Shriver’s comments, however, are worth noting because he does an excellent job tying the issues presented in the movie to the marginalization, bullying, deathmaking, and other harms suffered by people with intellectual disabilities.

Shriver points out:

People with intellectual disabilities are routinely abused, neglected, insulted, institutionalized and even killed around the world. Their parents are told to give up, that their children are worthless. Schools turn them away. Doctors refuse to treat them. Employers won’t hire them. None of this is funny.

For centuries, they have been the exception to the most basic spiritual principle: that we are each equal in spirit, capable of reflecting the goodness of the divine, carriers of love. But not people with intellectual disabilities. What’s a word commonly applied to them? Hopeless.

… and concludes:

So, enough. Stop the hurtful jokes. Talk to your children about language that is bullying and mean. Ask your friends, your educators, your religious leaders to help us to end the stubborn myth that people with intellectual disabilities are hopeless. Ask Hollywood to get on the right side of dignity.

I hope others will join me in shutting this movie out of our lives and our pocketbooks. We don’t live in times when labeling and humiliating others is funny. And we should send that message far and wide.

Thank you, Mr. Shriver.

Dream works has pulled back on some of the worst aspects of their advertising, but for the most part it will be business as usual. After all, there are big stars and big money who stand to make money on this film, and if it stirs up a little hatred against the most vulnerable segments of society that isn’t really their responsibility or is it. Sadly, people who actually care about vulnerable members of society will stay away from this film, and people who are full of hatred and ambivalence will be drawn to in by the controversy over what the defenders of the film like to call its “irreverence.”

Tags: Tim Shriver, Tropic Thunder